Online Harms White Paper

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very happy to contribute to the positive way in which the Minister has presented the case. I am delighted that, as promised by the Government, time has been made for adequate consideration of the issues in this debate. However, I am disappointed that more people are not here. There was such a swell of enthusiasm when this matter came before us the first time that I thought we would have a much better-peopled debate and a longer list of speakers. However, we are here and the ideas are waiting to be explored.

I am happy that this debate is taking place during the period of consultation and I hope that the record of this debate will contribute to the documentation being considered. It will make it 1,001 contributions thus far.

Bold claims have been made for what is hoped to be the result of this process. By the way, it is good to start with a White Paper and with regular rounds of conversations. The bold claims include the Government saying that they are going to create the safest place to be online and that this will be a world first, with no one having done it before. They also say that it could be part of a global response to perceived needs in this area. I feel that we are making something available for our country by way of regulation in respect of a global industry that is very difficult to contain within any framework that I can imagine. We will be hearing from various speakers about regulation, so I shall not deal with that now. The duty of care has already been mentioned. I wish that the digital charter had crept somewhere into the narrative because there are lots of ethical issues that would make it very appropriate to consider it.

There is much else in the White Paper but I want to focus on the list of harms on page 31. I shall not go through them all but I note the three columns headed “Harms with a clear definition”, “Harms with a less clear definition” and “Underage exposure to legal content”. There is a list beneath each heading. I want to compare those lists with the ones that appear in another DCMS document. I was reading it not for this debate, to be quite honest, but for the debate last week on advertising and the internet. It came out of the same stable as the White Paper. I am calling it the Plum report because that is what is on the front cover. It is called Online Advertising in the UK. It was commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and it was published in January 2019, when drafts of the White Paper must have been in DCMS. As I said, it is from the same stable. On pages 17 to 19 of this report there are three lists of potential harms to be found online. They have different names from those in the White Paper: individual harms, societal harms and economic harms. This document was produced with the debate on the Communications Committee’s report on advertising and the internet in mind, and to feed into the Cairncross report on local journalism. But the two lists—in the White Paper and the Plum report—must be looked at together. They are rather unlike each other and point to things that we dare not ignore.

After the debate on the Statement, to which the Minister referred, I had a conversation on the Floor of the House with the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, who I am sorry to say is not in her place today. She was worried about the absence in the White Paper of any reference to economic harms. I do not believe she was thinking about the responsibilities of small and medium-sized businesses, which would be the same, proportionately, as those of other institutions and bodies; she was talking about online harms to these small and medium-sized businesses. These concerns have been picked up by other commentators too.

The list of economic harms in the Plum report includes:

“Product bundling and exclusivity … ‘Walled Gardens’”,


on which stakeholders express concern that it is hard,

“to export user ID data collected during advertising campaigns”.

The list also includes:

“Lack of transparency in programmatic display … Differential treatment”—


whereby some companies are given better treatment and so on—as well as “leveraging”, “engagement with industry initiatives”, in which market players “do not always adopt” industry standardisation, and “control of web browsers”. It is quite a list, and of a different kind from the one in the White Paper. I wanted to keep these lists together.

After that same debate, I had another conversation, this time with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. It is always a frightening experience to talk to the noble Baroness; she is clever and I do not feel that I am. If I felt even a little clever, I would feel much less so after a conversation with her than I did when I began. She is a quite remarkable woman, whose recent publications are on the subject of trust. Her earlier work was on Immanuel Kant, whom I have barely ever understood; the right reverend Prelate will be better versed in him than I am. These books on trust, however, seem to be looking, as a philosopher should, at a very important subject. Anyway, in this conversation, the noble Baroness expressed her worries about the lack of reference in the White Paper to societal harms. She and I have been greatly impressed by—and shared our impressions of—the recent book Democracy Hacked by Martin Moore, which looks forensically at the damage done online to our democratic institutions.

On societal harms, the list revealed in the Plum report is again very revealing. It includes,

“financial support for publishers of offensive or harmful content”—

that is, providing means of monetisation for those creating harmful content on platforms—as well as discrimination, which can occur either by design or inadvertently when advertisers target data to categorise people by gender, ethnicity and race. The list also includes “non-transparent political advertising”, whereby anonymous actors may “influence elections and referendums”.

It is interesting that in tomorrow’s Oral Questions, the noble Baroness will ask a Question on this subject. I am sure she will want to quote the sympathy of the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, on this very matter. The contribution I want to make as the subject opens up today is to identify and, in some way, feel comfortable with, the range of online harms that we are referring to. They tend to be, as in the White Paper, to do with the plight of individuals. If that is the desired outcome, it ought to be said clearly that this is what we are dealing with. But online harm is a much more generic term and the economic and societal aspects deserve to be mentioned.

I conclude by saying that the Secretary of State has set himself a very difficult target. He wants a Bill that will put the UK’s house in order on a truly global matter of concern. How that will be done we wait to see. The proposals aim to get the right balance between the long-overdue regulation in this area and continuing adherence to the principles of free speech; the Minister has already given assurances on that. He is also looking to produce legislation that, while he gives it his best attention, will be overtaken by rapid development in the field of technology, even as we debate the Bill. We must look for a Bill that is light on its feet, flexible and can be put to work, rather than something static, heavy and fixed that will be out of date as soon as it becomes an Act of Parliament.

I look forward to hearing other views because, at this stage, this is a conversation. I look forward to shaping a document that, ultimately, will go beyond what we are comfortable with as a step in the right direction and needs to go much further.

Huawei

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

Front Bench!

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am quite sure that the noble Lord would have asked a very pertinent and searching question, and no doubt he will do it eventually. The fact that much of what is happening is hidden behind this question of a leak limits the Minister’s ability to answer some of the questions, but no doubt the time will come for that. Today, £5 billion is quoted as the likely amount that Facebook will have to pay as a fine for the misappropriation of data and technological information in the last period. The Statement says that the review,

“is not about one company, or even one country”.

Are we not already in a complicated relationship with firms of this kind from America? Can we have a global set of assurances that all these sources of information will be adequately managed for the well-being of us all?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord is exactly right. As I said, this is not just about one country. The National Security Council looks at all these issues. The problem with a global network such as the internet is that threats can come from any country, and they may originate in one but attack through another. It is complicated. In this country, we have one of the best organisations to deal with this: the National Cyber Security Centre in GCHQ. The main thing to stress is that our security is pre-eminent, but we have to strike a balance with new and emerging economies and how we deal with them—and not just with regard to cybersecurity.

Radio: Local Commercial Stations

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Of course, the noble Lord is right. Not only community radio but commercial radio has seen a massive increase since 2010, when the current regime was bought in. But according to Ofcom’s guidelines, the large commercial radio groups still need to have studios that originate programming within approved local areas. The approved local areas were brought in under the last Labour Government. They will not be able to originate content solely in London. We support local radio in a number of ways and are looking forward, for example, to introducing multiplexes soon for local DAB radio.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I spent part of the recent break reading—or rereading—Seven Types of Ambiguity. It occurred to me that chapter 5 of that momentous work dealt with statements in the briefing I received from the radio industry putting forward its case:

“Through technology, stations have the ability to customise the news information they broadcast, irrespective of where the presenters are based”,


which means that we no longer have keep to the same number of stations open. These approved areas can be a pretext behind which we hide the diminution of jobs, of locally based services and of immediate contact with local communities, and can produce and customise in faraway places, with no reporters on site, things that sound as if they are near. Do the Government think that that is really what is behind the slackening of regulation affecting this sector of our life?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The basic issue is that commercial analogue radio faces an enormous challenge from digital services, both online and terrestrial. The changes that have been made by Ofcom to localness were in accordance with listeners’ views. For example, only 17% of respondents to the survey and the consultation thought that locally based presenters were a factor which helped make their station feel local. Ofcom has a requirement to have content made in approved areas, which are local ITV areas, and local news must be produced either hourly or twice a day. If stations have local news only twice a day, they have to produce more locally made content. The greatest factor in whether people listen to local radio is—shock, horror—that it plays the music the listeners like; 72% of respondents said so.

Discrimination in Football

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. I will begin a response and ask some questions by echoing the Minister’s remarks and those in the Statement that honour the remarkable courage of the three players—Zaha, Sterling and Rose—who have stood up for proper values when it is enormously difficult to do so in the environment in which they work. They are young men and their courage needs to be commended.

Secondly, I honour the work of a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, who, with Kick It Out, has worked so hard for decades to address the questions implicit in the Statement. As a House, we should be proud that he is one of us. He is stepping down from the front line of those responsibilities, but his work has been very considerable.

I note from the Statement the various measures that are taken reactively to incidents that occurred in Montenegro, Chelsea or wherever. Of course, we must frame responses that are appropriate to incidents of that kind. I also note that there is every desire to create conditions and have a discussion with the appropriate people that will try to keep in check the outbursts that we all so much regret.

I have a question for those of us whose responsibilities overlap with the DCMS. We hear that some football club fans are using closed Facebook groups to promote racist ideology. With the publication of the Online Harms White Paper this week, will the use of this type of technology be looked at as it applies to football?

I was responsible for an activity that reached out to and included people from a vast variety of racial and ethnic groups—55 at one time—for a number of years. When I took up my responsibilities in that arena, I noticed that, with all the diversity in front of us, those of us running the show were about half a dozen very white people.

I knew then that a bigger job had to be done if we were to work away at the culture that we seek to change. I set myself a target: to diversify the leadership offered to this group within three or four years. In the end, we brought in a variety of faces from Fiji, Korea, various countries in west Africa and the Indian subcontinent. I noticed and can attest to—indeed, we measured it—the change in the nature of engagement on the part of those who had previously been talked to or over but now felt that they owned the operation.

That leads me to ask my question—which, apart from the Facebook one, is perhaps my only serious one: how do we change a culture? A culture in the support of our national game permits and encourages these subversive activities. I remember having a close association in the 1980s with those neo-fascist groups of hooligans that went round causing trouble at various football stadiums across the land. How do we change a culture and allow a diverse population to feel that it has ownership of this game, rather than it being in the hands of multimillionaires from other places? Seriously, how do we stop black players on the pitch being used, in a sense, as icons, heroes or puppets for people’s own prejudices? There is deep work to be done. We could apply what I have said to homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Changing a culture is difficult; in football, that seems to be the number one question to address.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. This is one of those happy occasions when there is a great deal of consensus in this Chamber, and possibly across the whole of government, on the fact that we must address this.

We are not talking about a new thing; we are talking about something that many of us hoped was at least in terminal decline. In fact, we are hearing an unpleasant echo of the culture of abuse in football that was a regular part of the cheering of the crowds when I was growing up. I remember being in Scotland when the first black player played in the Old Firm game and Glasgow market sold out of bananas. There is nothing new here—which is probably one of the most worrying things.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. It strikes me that we will have to get co-operation between bodies that, shall we say, cherish their independence very strongly. The Premiership, the Football League and the FA will have to work with government closely and consistently if we are to achieve the identification of those taking care of this. Indeed, the noble Lord mentioned something I had not thought about but should have done: social media. These issues are all related in making sure that things go forward.

When it comes to international groups—club football at the top level is an international game now—we will have to work with our neighbours. I hate to bring discord to the debate by echoing the previous one, but what steps are being taken to make sure that, under any circumstances, we have good links to ensure that someone cannot simply run away from the game until they get to a big international stage and then carry on this activity? If we start with racism, nationalism will not be far behind. Skin colour first, language second; it will happen. What are we doing to identify the problem? As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, pointed out, what are we doing to make sure that anybody who takes action when they feel that they are not being protected will not suffer huge penalties?

The Premiership is one of the biggest invisible earners in this country. Billions of pounds are involved. If a manager feels that his players are under threat and removes them from that environment, what are we going to do to protect him? Ultimately, it will be a manager who will do this, even if an individual player walks off. It will be a manager who has to take the brunt of it, and the club. What are we doing to protect them—what are we doing to work towards it? Until we start to take questions like that very seriously and to make sure that the whole of football—FIFA, UEFA, everybody—works together, we are not going to do this. The Government’s role in this is to co-ordinate that.

Electronic Communications (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Lords Chamber

With those few questions, I just say that I very much hope that this short debate will have been wasted.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I looked behind me in vain for interventions from our side of the House. I am happy to provide as short a contribution to this debate as others, and very happy that my noble friend Lord Foster—if I may call him that—has made some of his usual penetrating comments that leave me free to look at things at another level. As the Minister said, this SI seems a simple matter of tidying up an area that had not been previously dealt with in full. I cannot comment on why some of this was not done earlier, but it is being done now. When I got it and saw the pages and pages of sheer drudgery that our very talented Civil Service has had to give its best time to, my heart sank.

It also occurred to me that debating it today is very ironical because the Prime Minister does not want a no-deal exit—neither do the Lords or the Commons. Nobody wants it, but we look as if we might be in danger of drifting into it. Once upon a time, a Roman emperor played the violin while the city around him burned. Now, our contemporary empress is fiddling in European capitals and burning our boats while she does it. We must ask ourselves very seriously whether this exercise of 500 or more statutory instruments being pushed through our procedures in this way has been beneficial to anybody.

I note the substantive point that the statutory instrument intends to deal with the,

“notification of personal data breaches by providers of publicly available electronic communications service”.

I have learned so many acronyms in reading for this debate—indeed, it has been on a par with “Line of Duty”, which I watch rather assiduously when I can. The replacing of “competent national authority” references with references to the “Information Commissioner” seems to tidy everything up. I looked and, as has been mentioned by others already, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee drew attention to the facts about these calls. Indeed, it added an appendix to one of its committee meetings to ask technical questions of the Minister. He has answered those and I need not therefore repeat them.

With the ground adequately covered and tidiness brought to a fundamentally futile exercise, I am happy to rest the case there. I invite the Minister to say some reassuring words and answer our questions so that we can move on to other business.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their points and detailed questions on a detailed SI.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, castigated us for bringing these small changes forward at a late stage and asked why we did not bring them forward earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, looked at the details, a substantial number of which need to be addressed, not only in legislation but in EU decisions, regulations and directives. That takes time, and we want to get it right. He also asked whether I can categorically assure him that he will not have to deal with these matters again. Of course I cannot give him that assurance, as he well knows, but the point is made and I accept it.

On a serious note, it is important to get these things right. I pay tribute to the civil servants in my department, who have worked very hard to try to do that. Most of the provisions in this statutory instrument are genuinely technical, changing the language so that it makes sense in the event that we leave the EU. Of course, this is a no-deal Brexit SI, so it is contingent on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, asked some specific questions about his favourite subject—the BEREC regulations—such as why we did not bring them forward. The reason is that this SI repeals the 2018 BEREC regulation, which replaced the 2009 BEREC regulation. That regulation was repealed and replaced in December 2018, so it is now necessary to revoke the new 2018 BEREC regulation. It was not ready at the time of the previous SI, which is why we are doing that now. I hope that he can feel happy with that.

As far as the GDPR is concerned, we agreed the data SI in this House some weeks ago. The noble Lord referred to Article 81 on the suspension of proceedings, which is omitted from the UK GDPR. In a UK-only context, that provision becomes redundant, because it is right that breaches of the UK GDPR are brought before UK courts. Of course, amendments to the retained GDPR were debated by this House in February 2019.

Online Harms

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, it is with pleasure and a great deal of relief that I speak to this Statement and the White Paper that lies behind it. Having sat through endless hours of the previous debates and the acrimony generated by them, and having found ourselves in places where I suspect none of us wanted to be, it is a pleasure to come to proper business again and to look at something that affects the whole of our society. We must find remedies and seek a legislative way forward that deals with the problems that we know are part and parcel of this innovative and brilliant thing that we call the internet and the technological advances that go with it.

Having read the White Paper and listened to the Statement, I am convinced that, across the Benches of this House, we must see this as unique in a party-political system in that we must act together. Consensual approaches and sensible resolutions to the problem are a duty that falls upon all of us. After all, the internet affects every part of our society—all of us have felt the questions it raises and enjoyed the wonderful opportunities it affords—so I hope that we can approach this in a consensual and cross-party way.

I congratulate the Government—is it not wonderful to hear someone from these Benches saying that?—on generating a report that is lucid and clear and will generate the kind of discussion that the consultative period, now beginning, will need. It is well laid out; my son is a printer, and he constantly beleaguers me about layout as I understand it and layout as he understands it, and he would be pleased with this. I can give no higher commendation. Congratulations are in order.

I know that we will have detailed, forensic debates when the results of the consultation are before us. At the moment, highlighting some of the headline aspects will have to do. The duty of care has been spoken to already and we must emphasise it; after all, we are all aware of those who are harmed by the abuse of the internet. Some well-publicised cases leave their images constantly before our eyes, especially when we think that some of them, indeed a lot of them, are children. In previous legislation that we have debated on the Floor of the House, we have talked about designing the internet in such a way that the interests and rights of children are protected. I am quite sure that we will take all that forward in the outworking of the further proposals in this White Paper.

We want to protect people from harms, and we will no doubt want to discuss what we think constitutes harms in the proper sense. There are indeed in this White Paper, rather conveniently, tabulated harms: those that are illegal, that are dangerous; that deserve attention. These are indicative lists, and no doubt we will want to move things from here to there and there to here, and add to and subtract from as time goes on, but it is a pretty good starting point to show us the range of conducts and activities that we will need to give attention to.

It is a bold White Paper. It claims to be bold and boasts of being bold. For me, there is one aspect that teases me, and I hope the Minister can give us some reassurance on it. It is the whole idea that while the internet and online activity affects us locally—in our homes and elsewhere—this has to be balanced against the fact that the companies, across whose platforms the material that generates these problems come, are global. We have seen how difficult it is to deal with the taxation aspects of these global companies. It will be equally difficult to think about legislation that could bring them all into line, and a word about that would be very helpful as we steer our way into the consideration of these proposals.

Statutory measures are mentioned, and I am delighted about that, of course, because these proposals and this way forward need to be underpinned by the full force of the law, and the regulator will be endowed with powers that are appropriate to the importance of the job. I wonder how we will bring a regulator to birth; some suggest that it should perhaps be an offshoot of Ofcom in the first place, that under the aegis of Ofcom we can get regulation built in to our way forward, and that it can evolve into something more complete later.

Any legislation that we bring forward will need to be nimble and flexible, because technology moves faster than the making of laws, and since the making of a law, as we know from the one we have been discussing, can be interminable, I hope that we will never be accused of tardiness in acting promptly, flexibly and nimbly to combat the downside of online activities.

So I congratulate the Government and I look forward to further debates and in greater detail.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, we, too, on these Benches welcome the fact that the Government’s proposals have come forward today, and we support the placing of a statutory duty of care on social media companies. We agree that the new arrangements should apply to any sites,

“that allow users to share or discover user-generated content, or interact with each other online”.

We think that is a fair definition.

We are all aware of the benefits of social media networks and the positive role they can play. There is, however, far too much illegal content and harmful activity on social media that goes undealt with by social media platforms and creates social harm. The self-harming material on Instagram and the footage of the Christchurch killings are perhaps the most recent examples.

Proper enforcement of existing laws is, of course, vital to protect users from harm, but, as the White Paper proposes, social media companies should have a statutory duty of care to their users—above all, to children and young people—and, as I say, we fully support the proposed duty of care. It follows that, through the proposed codes, Parliament and Government have an important role to play in defining that duty clearly. We cannot leave it to big private tech firms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to decide the acceptable bounds of conduct and free speech on a purely voluntary basis, as they have been doing to date.

It is good that the Government recognise the dangers that exist online and the inadequacy of current protections. However, regulation and enforcement must be based on clear evidence of well-defined harm, and must respect the rights to privacy and free expression of those who use social media legally and responsibly. I welcome the Government’s stated commitment to these two aspects.

We also very much welcome the Government’s adherence to the principle of regulating on a basis of risk and proportionality when enforcing the duty of care and drawing up the codes. Will the codes, as the Lords Communications Committee called for, when exercising powers of oversight, set out clearly the distinction between criminal, harmful content and antisocial content? By the same token, upholding the right to freedom of expression does not mean a laissez-faire approach. Does the Minister agree that bullying and abuse prevent people expressing themselves freely and must be stamped out? Will there be a requirement that users must be able to report harmful or illegal content to platforms and have their reports dealt with appropriately, including being kept informed of the progress and outcome of any complaint?

Similarly, there must be transparency about the reasons for decisions and any enforcement action, whether by social media companies or regulators. Users must have the ability to challenge a platform’s decision to ban them or remove their content. We welcome the proposed three-month consultation period; indeed, I welcome the Government’s intention to achieve cross-party consensus on the crucial issue of regulating online harms. I agree that with a national consensus we could indeed play an international leadership role in this area.

Then we come to the question of the appropriate regulator to enforce this code and duty. Many of us assumed that this would naturally fall to Ofcom, with its experience and expertise, particularly in upholding freedom of speech. If it is not to be Ofcom, with all its experience, what criteria will be used in determining what new or existing body will be designated? The same appears to me to apply to the question of whether the ICO is the right regulator for the algorithms used by social media. I see that the Home Office will be drawing up certain codes. Who will be responsible for the non-criminal codes? Have the Government considered the proposals by Doteveryone and the Lords Communications Select Committee for a new “Office for Internet Safety” as an advisory body to analyse online harms, identify gaps in regulation and enforcement and recommend new regulations and powers to Parliament?

At the end of the day, regulation alone cannot address all these harms. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has said, children have the right to a childhood. Schools need to educate children about how to use social media responsibly and be safe online, as advocated by the PSHE Association and strongly supported by my party. Parents must be empowered to protect their children through digital literacy, advice and support. I very much hope that that is what is proposed by the online media literacy strategy.

At the end of the day, we all need to recognise that this kind of regulation can only do so much. We need a change of culture among the social media companies. They should be proactively seeking to prevent harm. The Government refer to a culture of continuous improvement being a desired goal. We on these Benches thoroughly agree that that is vital.

Public Service Broadcasters

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My noble friend is absolutely right. This is one problem with US subscription services. They spend a huge amount on content. Netflix spent £4.6 billion on content in 2017 and Amazon spent £3.4 billion, but only £150 million of that was UK-made TV, whereas the public service broadcasters spent £2.6 billion on UK content.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s replies to questions thus far put, but in the speech that occasioned the Question the Ofcom commissioner talked about competition and collaboration between the public service broadcasters and the great platforms that we are talking about—the FANGs. In other words, this is not just about competition between public service broadcasters and these various bodies; collaboration needs to happen between them. She points to certain instances such as “King Lear” and “Dracula” that are evidence of such collaboration already taking place.

I must not outlast my welcome, but I have one tiny thing to finish. Apart from BritBox—this thing that is coming between ITV and the BBC—I have recently been made aware of other boxes that are the result of piracy and people taking the market away from all the bodies that we have thus far discussed. What kind of eye are we keeping on such activities in this ever-emerging field?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord is right that there has already been a lot of collaboration. Collaboration exists between Netflix and other subscription video on demand services and the public service broadcasters. That will continue and is being encouraged. Illegal boxes are illegal. They will be prosecuted within the law because they take away the benefits that public service broadcasting brings to ordinary citizens and consumers in this country.

Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 2022

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, while I have great sympathy with my noble friend, I have just said that the delivery body will be independent of Ministers. However, I am sure it will take note of what my noble friend said.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I grant that there must be this arm’s-length relationship between the organisation of the festival and the Government. However, when the body that oversees the festival is set up, can we find a way of ensuring that it is reminded that this is neither 1851 nor 1951 and that Britain is a much more diverse country now than it was then, so that we can celebrate diversity in the course of this festival? If we are looking for someone to lead and spearhead those who organise this festival, as the noble Baroness said, may I recommend someone who I know will be free from the summer and who has proven organisational ability and a great inspirational character, namely Mr Warren Gatland?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

This is meant to be a cultural festival—

Public Authorities: Algorithms

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am not an expert, but I am sure that the noble Lord can go back to his school days and remember from his study of Greek that Euclid was producing algorithms in 300 BC —he will remember that this was for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers. Essentially, an algorithm is a set of rules that precisely defines a sequence of operations. Today, they are used mainly by computers for calculations, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, clearly, I must voice the general opinion expressed in other ways in appreciation of the Minister’s reply to a very pernickety noble friend of his, who is sitting on the Bench behind him. We have heard reports of information that will come from the data ethics people in the summer, and we have a White Paper on online harms coming very soon and then a period of consultation. I always seem to be stuck at the Dispatch Box acknowledging that the answer to the question I really want to ask will come in months’ or perhaps years’ time. The noble Lord who put the question is quite right: things are happening in the field of technology now, with all those local councils and police forces using algorithms to forecast possible courses of action and take policy decisions in light of what they think will happen. We are told that consultative experiences are about to happen, but is it “when” or “if”? It would be good if the Minister could somehow bypass or short-circuit the labyrinthine things that are happening elsewhere and give us some reassurance that certification for things which are already happening in the field and shaping our future can be looked at critically.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

It is not completely fair to say that nothing has happened. In areas where personal data is used, for example, that has to be used lawfully under the aegis of the Data Protection Act. The Information Commissioner recently said that she was minded to issue guidelines on the use of data in respect of children. The Information Commissioner is a powerful regulator who is looking at the use of personal data. We also have the Digital Economy Act, and we have set up the Data Ethics Framework, which allows public bodies to use the data which informs algorithms in a way that is principled and transparent. Work is going on, but I take the noble Lord’s point that it has to be looked at fairly urgently.

Online Safety

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I do not want to give anything away but the noble Baroness has set out many of the reasons for bringing forward the White Paper. I agree with how the public feel. It is a question of building trust in these big companies if the benefits are to continue. We will cover education in the White Paper—that has already been talked about—including for parents. The UK Council for Internet Safety has already developed a framework to equip children and young people for digital life and a practical guide for parents, but we will see more on that subject in the White Paper.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, the White Paper has been amply referred to; we all look forward to it. I was at a seminar led by the Secretary of State the other day, where he made very high claims for it. He said that things have never been done like this before—that is, in a way that will have an impact on the whole world of IT. He set his standards very high indeed so we will be watching to see whether the proposals match his great statements. I worry that whatever we propose from within our own geography, not just on social media but on global social media, will depend on similar responses from other parts of the world. We have an international treaty to limit nuclear weapons. Knowing what we now know, is it not time that we started an initiative to bring the international community on board and into the conversation, recognising that this is a universal problem that needs a global response?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree, which is why we are already consulting with our international partners. There are different views of how the internet should be taken forward, but for child protection and the more egregious things that social media companies do, there is an issue of internationalism, not least how regulations are enforced. That is something we are considering, and one of the benefits of doing it in the traditional way of having a Green Paper, a White Paper and then legislation is that we will continue to have consultation with noble Lords, which we are prepared to listen to. We will set out the views of where we think we are going, but we are open to consultation as well.